


The Sun Still Rises (Even With the Pain)

by Midnightminx90



Series: TSAR [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Family, Family Feels, Family Loss, Grief/Mourning, Inspired by Fanfiction, Minor Character Death, The Sun Always Rises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 12:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21161981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnightminx90/pseuds/Midnightminx90
Summary: Wilhand passes away in his sleep





	The Sun Still Rises (Even With the Pain)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tameila](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tameila/gifts), [HumbleWaysideFlower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HumbleWaysideFlower/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Sun Always Rises](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10013741) by [tameila](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tameila/pseuds/tameila). 

> Title from Another Story by The Head and the Heart
> 
> For Molly, who wrote The Sun Always Rises, which this is based off of, and for Kylie, without whom I would not have read this

Wilhand passes away in his sleep.  
  
No one was with him when it happened, as none had suspected it would happen. He was gone between one breath and the next, such a simple thing, really.  
  
Pike awakens, her chest hollow unlike ever before.  
  
She knows something is wrong, that something’s happened, and her first thought is of Scanlan. But her husband is asleep beside her, hair tousled, sleep crusting his eyes and the barest hint of drool in the crook of his lips. Pike takes a moment to admire how Scanlan can look so handsome despite that.  
  
Then she’s out of their bed, throwing on shoes and a jacket, grabbing her phone and keys.  
  
Pike is out the door and in Scanlan’s car in an instant. Outside, a storm ranges unlike she can ever remember, and it forces her to drive slowly, despite the empty roads, because her sight is limited and the constant flashes of lighting makes it all the harder to see as the thunder shakes the ground.  
  
The drive to her Papa’s house stretches on for what feels like hours, but then she’s there and it seems only seconds have passed.  
  
Pike turns off the engine, exits the car before pausing at the entrance to the house. She got sopping wet from the short walk from the car to the covered porch, and she’s dripping onto the floorboards.  
It’s the middle of the night, so the silence shouldn’t be surprising. But… it feels different. It feels wrong. 

She unlocks the door, letting it stay open behind her as she climbs the stairs.  
  
Again, she pauses at the door to Wilhand’s room, her hand caught midway in reaching for the handle.  
  
She thinks of calling for Grog, not knowing if she can do this on her own, then recalls he‘s with Keyleth tonight. Pike had wanted to stay in the house with her Papa, but Wilhand had assured her he’d be fine, don’t worry about the storm. Just like always.  
  
A deep breath, held as she turns the handle and opens the door.  
  
Wilhand is on his back, fingers entwined, hands resting on his chest, as though in prayer.   
  
Pike takes a cautious step, as though not to wake him, and then she runs, flings herself towards the bed, reaching out for the first man who ever loved her.  
  
Wilhand is not cold to the touch, but neither is he as warm as he should be. Still, it’s enough for Pike to know at once what has happened.  
  
A sob escaped her, tears sting her eyes and yet she’s unable to cry.   
  
She’s feared this for years, known she’s needed to accept that it could happen at any moment, but nothing could have prepared her for this.  
  
Pike sits with him, clasping his now cold hands in her own, as though trying to bring warmth and life back to Wilhand. It’s futile, life doesn’t work that way, she knows this all too well, but there is a part of her that hopes this is all a bad dream, that she’ll wake up to Scanlan comforting her, that he’ll call Wilhand for her so that she’ll know it was naught but a nightmare.  
  
But it’s not.  
  
She doesn’t know how long she sits there; it could have been days, weeks or even months, before Grog returns home, humming to himself.  
  
Still, Pike does not move or call out to him.  
  
Grog’s feet are heavy on the stairs, and Pike feels her heartbeat quicken as Grog gets closer and closer.  
  
He peeks his head in, smiling when he sees her, not knowing that his parental figure has passed while he slept. But something must tip him off to the fact that something is wrong, because his smile fades and he enters, a blank look on his face that quickly turns to horror.  
  
Grog doesn’t speak either, falling down next to her, his knees hitting the floor hard enough to bruise his skin and splinter the wood.  
  
Pike’s never seen him cry.  
  
Not until now.  
  
And that is what breaks her.  
  
  
\---

Time moves in a blur.  
  
Scanlan hovers close by as she makes phonecalls. Her friends do the same, Keyleth crying into Grog’s neck as he holds her close. His tears have dried, as Pike’s have, and she sees her own numb expression mirrored on Grog’s face.  
  
There are preparations to be made, and while Scanlan and her friends offer to help in any way they can, Pike turns them down.  
  
Wilhand was her family, the only of those she’s related to by blood that counts as family, and so it’s up to her - and Grog - to prepare. They owe it to him, to make sure his departure from this world is worthy of the respect and help he gave to them.  
  
Still, there are so many people to tell, a whole town full of them, and people who grew up with Wilhand’s sermons who have since moved away, who will need to be informed.  
  
Pike doesn’t know how to go about it - how does one even inform so many of it?  
  
It turns out, telling one person is enough, as that person will tell two more and on and on it goes, until all of Westruun knows of Wilhands peaceful passing. The town and congregation knows enough to not arrive at his house, and so they all flock to the church, and the whole place fills with so much food and flowers that none will go hungry for days and the air feels stifling with the scent of all kinds of flowers.  
  
An impromptu wake is held there, and Vax goes, feels the need to pray with the others, while Pike and Grog and Scanlan stays home, making preparations.  
  
Pike shuts herself in Wilhand’s room, puts on a CD with songs of their choir and begins the job of cleaning her Papa’s body, before dressing him in his finest robes and the decorations he wore when he still held sermons.  
  
\---  
  
The funeral is the most painful thing Pike’s ever experienced.  
  
She stands with Scanlan and Grog by the coffin, left open for people to lay one last glance at the man who saved so many, her and Grog most of all. Her tears never stop falling, snot dripping as well but she refuses to remove her hand from the coffin to blow her nose.  
  
Mourning is undignified, and crying is ugly.  
  
Pike feels as though she can’t breathe, as though Wilhand’s death only truly registered with her now, days later. Only one hand on the coffin keeps her upright, until Scanlan reaches out to hold her other.  
  
She grasps the lifeline like she’ll drown if she lets go, and her tears flow impossibly faster.  
  
How easily she would have had to do this without Scanlan, how easily things could have been nothing like they are now, in a world where he never became anything more than her brother’s best friend.  
  
\---  
  
After Wilhand’s been laid to rest in the ground, buried in an ocean of flowers, Pike pulls Scanlan into the small office she shares with Kris, needing to take a moment away from everyone and everything.  
  
“I have something to tell you,” she says to Scanlan, though her eyes rest on the statue of Sarenrae.  
  
“Are you okay babe?” he asks her, then adds, “shit, sorry, of course you’re not. That was stupid, I’m…”  
  
“I’m pregnant.”  
  
Scanlan’s whole face changes, from sorrow and worry to disbelief and delight.  
  
“At least I got to tell him that,” Pike continues. “Even though he won’t meet them, at least he knew.”  
  
He kisses her then, and Pike melts into his embrace.  
  
A life lost and a life gained, in such a short amount of time, and Pike doesn’t have the capacity to think about it at all, not yet.  
  
\---  
  
The wake is not what Pike had expected.  
  
Stories are shared, and she knows most of them, some she even knows by heart, but there are new ones, from when Wilhand was young, before he found Sarenrae.  
Pike finds herself laughing at several, and for some reason it doesn’t strike her as odd or wrong to laugh during a wake.  
  
Still, she knows that this is what Wilhand would have wanted, that had he been able to, he would have made sure they had a good time and that they would laugh, at or with him.  
  
Pike stands up at the end, thanking everyone for being there, and through tears and laughter, says that had Wilhand been there himself, he would have made most of the food himself and insisted on doing the dishes after as well.  
  
The whole room, even Vax, laughs at that, and it makes Pike feel good, that she could do this for the, after all they’ve done for her and her family.  
  
\---  
  
It’s a strange thing, mourning.  
  
There are days when she wakes up and everything seems normal. Days when she’ll begin her preparations for the day, when she wants to visit Wilhand for just a little while. She’ll think of what she can make for him to eat and smile to herself, looking forward to the visit. On those days, it’ll take her some time to remember her Papa’s body now rests under ground, and his soul with Sarenrae, and that she’ll never hug him or taste his cooking again.  
  
Those are not the worst days, however.  
  
The worst are when the lack of his presence has grown so familiar that she no longer thinks of it, because she’s so used to no longer having him around. Days where she’ll not think of the house where she grew up and lived a life she never thought possible in her first, fragile years of existing.  
  
Pike’s belly grows larger each day.  
  
On the days she forgets for a while, she’ll talk to her belly, tell her child of Wilhand and how happy he’ll be to see them born. Pike will stroke her belly as she speaks to it, and then her hand will still as she remembers Wilhand is no longer there, that he made it to walk her down the aisle but not to see her first child born.  
  
When it gets too much, which is does more and more often the larger her belly is, she’ll call Kris as ask if he can take over for her today. “Just this once,” she says each time, and each time Kris reassures her and Scanlan comes home early, leaving the choir to handle themselves for the sermon.  
  
On those days, Scanlan will bring home flowers and her favourite baked goods and he’ll make dinner as he sings, careful not to sing anything that will remind her of Wilhand or that might upset her.  
  
Pike loves him for it, for his gentle understanding.  
  
Most of her friends understand her loss, as they have lost one or both parents, but it still scanlan might be the one who understand her the most, except for Grog. Wilhand saved both her and Grog, and as her husband keeps reminding her, she saved Scanlan.  
  
Pike still thinks it’s Sarenrae who saved them all, but she holds her tongue.  
  
\---  
  
She expects her depression to take over again, waiting to wake up and not be able to leave the bed, but it seems Sarenrae and the life growing inside her keeps her relatively stable.  
  
Oh, there are days when she doesn’t shower or get dressed, when she barely eats and doesn’t leave the house, but it’s not as all-encompassing as she’s experienced before. There are still days when she, albeit briefly, considers giving it all up.  
  
But Pike’s learned to live with it, knows she’s in charge of another life now, and so she fights it, tooth and nail.  
  
She reaches out to her friends, to Grog, to Scanlan, talks to her unborn child, listens to Scanlan’s songs, the songs and versions he’s recorded just for her to listen to.  
  
\---  
  
Their daughter is born on a sunny day, the complete opposite of the night Wilhand died.  
  
Scanlan takes one look at their daughter, held so carefully in Pike’s arms, as she’s so afraid to hurt the small thing, and he smiles at the both of them. It’s a wobbly thing because of his tears, but just as bright as his usual smiles.  
  
Pike looks up at him, reaches one hand out.  
  
“Wilhelmina” they both say at the same time, and so it is decided.  
  
When it’s Scanlan’s turn to hold her, Pike sees his hands shake and it looks almost as though he’ll pull away, but he doesn’t. He holds Wilhelmina even more gently than Pike herself did, and tears well in his eyes once more as he looks down into her eyes and sees what Piker herself saw.  
  
Scanlan’s own hair, and the Trickfoot eyes.  
  
\---  
  
Once they’re released from the hospital, their first stop is the florist and then they head straight for the cemetary.  
  
Scanlan’s prepared - he’s brought food and drinks and a picnic blanket.  
  
For a long time they sit by Wilhand’s grave, telling him about the newest member of the family, and talking about how much he would have doted on her.  
  
“You would rival even our love for her,” Scanlan says, playing it off as a joke but knowing it’s true. Wilhand would have loved his namesake, would have been unable to deny her anything, even before she learns to speak. After, it would only have gotten worse.  
  
Grog and Keyleth joins them later, while Wilhelmina is asleep and the sun begins to set.  
  
Still they sit there, sharing stories of growing up in Wilhand’s house, from when they first came to live there and until the very last. Several include Scanlan and Kiki, but none of them mind. It’s all to remember Wilhand and his legacy; the reason they’re all here now.  
  
\---  
  
Scanlan and Pike and Wilhelmina move into Wilhand’s house at last.  
  
Pike had expected that getting used to living in Wilhand’s house without him would be weird, and while she sometimes wakes up in a cold sweat, remembering that time he was ill and she was convinced he would pass, it turns out it’s easier than she thought at first.  
  
Wilhand is still there in spirit, in the walls and furniture and sometimes Pike will awake to her daughter crying, settle into her own favourite chair to comfort and feed her, and swear she sees Wilhand sitting in his own chair.  
  
She’ll smile at the memory, for she knows it’s nothing more than that, and thank him for everything.  
  
\---  
  
It’s been one year since Wilhand passed, and the date catches Pike unawares.  
  
She feels guilty for forgetting, for not paying attention, and it strikes her so late in the day that she stops her dinner preparations in favour of grabbing Wilhelmina and driving to Wilhand’s grave.  
  
Scanlan will understand.  
  
In fact, she finds him already there when she arrives, head bowed and fingers laced in prayer, and she sees all the bouquets and lights surrounding the gravestone - too many to count.  
  
For a while, she observes her husband, leaving him to say what he needs to.  
  
Only when Scanlan opens his eyes does Pike join him, sitting down next to him, letting Wilhelmina walk carefully around, but keeping her in sight.  
She smiles at Scanlan, and he smiles back, reaching out to hold her close, resting his head on her shoulder as they watch their daughter take small, tentative steps, attempting to catch a butterfly.  
  
“She’s getting good at that,” Pike remarks.  
  
“Of course she is, she’s your daughter,” Scanlan replies, and Pike shakes her head, his curls tickling her cheek.  
  
"_Our_ daughter."  
  
\---  
  
It becomes an annual thing.  
  
On the day of Wilhand’s death and on the day of Wilhelmina’s birth, the small family, accompanied by Grog and Keyleth, will have a picnic, and as Wilhelmina grows older, they’ll tell her stories of her great-Papa and themselves as children after moving in with him.  
  
Wilhelmina is loved by Sarenrae and the congregation, just as they loved Wilhand and loves Pike.  
  
Even years later, the people of Westruun makes sure Pike and Scanlan know that if they ever need help with anything, that they should know they have only to ask and they’ll be there, to babysit or cook or tell stories of Wilhand before Pike came to live with him.  
  
Wilhand may be gone, but the love and support of their community is stronger than ever in his absence.  
  
\---  
  
Wilhelmina loves grand-Papa Wilhand’s chair, and as much as it pains Pike to see someone, anyone but him sit in it, even his namesake, she doesn’t have the heart to refuse her daughter.  
  
It takes time, but she convinces herself that it’s okay, that Wilhand would have let her.  
  
When Pike was young, recently moved into her Papa’s house, so scared of shadows and loud noises, she would curl up in that chair, on Wilhand’s lap during the day, or Wilhand would find her there at night, asleep and holding onto a statue of Sarenrae as it was the only place she felt safe.  
Wilhand had told her again and again that she was welcome to his room, that she was allowed to wake him when the nightmares haunted her. But Pike was still struggling to trust even him, and so the chair became a place of comfort and safety.  
  
How could she possibly deny her own daughter the same comfort?  
  
\---  
  
In Westruun and in the Trickfoot household, life moves on, and the sun still rises.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been... cathartic writing this, and it's made me reflect on the loss of my own (paternal) grandfather, who passed after suffering a stroke. It's been almost three years, and most of the time I don't even think about it. He and my grandmother (who got diagnosed with dementia a while before he passed and is fading more and more) have always been so important for me, and they were always there for my sister and I growing up. They welcomed me with open arms when they met my first gf (I'm bi) and made sure to know that we were always welcome there, no matter what. They looked after us when our parents were working, took our family on vacation to Mallorca two times (third time it was my sis, me and grandma), always had some candy and soda and some pocket-money for us when we were at their place. The spring of my year at boardingschool, I often went to their house for Sunday dinner, and my place was always next to grandpa. 
> 
> So while I've gotten used to it now, it will still catch me unawares at times. Last year, as I'd just handed in my last exam before the holidays, my first thought was that I wanted to call my grandpa, and the realisation that I couldn't felt like a punch in the gut.
> 
> I've never been religious in the slightest, and neither's my dad's side of the family, so grandpa got cremated and we spread his ashes in the woods right by where he grew up. It's what he wanted and I'm glad we did it, but sometimes I do feel the need to have a place to go that's easy to go to, to put down flowers and light a candle. Heading into the woods, esp there, is something that requires driving, and I've thought before of asking my dad if we could do it, but I haven't so far. 
> 
> When I got this idea, just after having finished TSAR, it felt like the perfect idea, to work out and write down the thoughts I've had when it comes to the loss of a man who was my grandfather but felt like my father in a way. A man who was always there and so kind and understanding.


End file.
